Judgement

Jim entered the conference room shakily.

He was shocked to see almost fifteen persons in the room.

A very strong looking man in his mid forties sat in the centre of the room, with everybody else sitting in a large semi-circle around him. There was a single empty chair before the man.

He said; "Ahh, welcome young man. Please take a seat." He pointed at the chair in front of him.

In the mean time, Linda had taken a place at the one end of the semi-circle. The man look intensively at him, smiled and asked: "So, how many tests do you think you have had? And how do you think you have done?"

Jim shrugged his shoulders and answered that he had taken three tests: a physical, a written test and a doctor's appointment.

The man laughed heartily, and said; "Look around lad. Do you recognize any of these persons?"

Jim looked around and to his astonishment he saw the stewardess from the plane. He pointed at her and said: "She was the stewardess on the plane".

The man nodded and said; "Yes, she was. She was also your first observer."

The man continued to tell him that he had not been unsupervised for a single second since his parents dropped him off at the airport in the States.

"Your first test was to draw as little attention as possible being a fairly young teenager alone in the business class part of a jet. You managed fine; you were polite to the crew, made no scenes and drew relatively little attention from the other guests."

The man explained how the society worshipped discreteness and politeness, and said that if he had failed, he would have been stopped and sent right home at the airport.

"So, any guess of your second test?"

Jim shrugged, as he had realized by now that he had had far more tests than he had believed.

He collected his thoughts and continued; "I take it that most of my trip was a test?" The man looked at him, surprised, and admitted "Well, not most — all!"

He let the statement a few seconds to sink into Jim's head, and continued: "Your second test was to act after a limited time with no instructions. Linda was not to approach you until the train in the other direction arrived two hours later — and had she had to approach you, you would again have been on the plane home."

The man yawned and continued: "But you approached her after an acceptable 14 minutes, even though you could have been a bit more assertive."

The man continued to say that the society wanted its members to be able to keep a secret and think fast, so Jim's third test was whether or not he would tell Linda the real reason he waited.

"And you passed that one too", the man said gently.

The fourth test, the man told, was whether Jim would accept that there were things he could not know — specifically which criteria was required for Linda to admit to being his contact.

"It was really her own choice as soon as you had passed the secretive test", the man confessed with a wink.

"Which brings us to the sports facility", the man continued, "there we first tested your punctuality (twice) and your physical shape. By the way, we are very pleased with your shape; it is seldom that we have candidates that take that great care of their fitness so early. Please see if you recognize more people in this room..."

Jim looked around and saw both of the fighting boys sitting next to each other. Jim pointed and said, "They fought, or perhaps I should say the older beat up the younger".

The man nodded and whispered, "Another test... You were required to intervene to stop the injustice, which you did. You did not score full points, as you never tried to understand the situation though..."

Jim nodded, beginning to feel a tad uncomfortable about all the tests he had already heard about.

The man continued, "Oh yes, and there was another test with the young man... you see, he is already pre-qualified for the society as every person in his family has been accepted for the last four generations, so he is a trusted resource in spite of his young age. His job was also to try to get you to brag about being here on a secret mission or something like that. Kind of the same story as Linda's direct question earlier, but much more sneaky this time."